The 80s had their immortalized John Hughes films and after Kevin Williamson and "Scream", studios started ramping up the production of teen films. While we had "I Know What You Did Last Summer" starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and their cleavage, we also got a ridiculous amount of horror teen resurgence. The WB launched "Dawson's Creek" and "Buffy The Vampire Slayer." Most of these films were trying to recapture the John Hughes touch with poor results. "Varsity Blues" with Dawson as quarterback was a huge hit in January of 1999. The studios cranked out a ton of teen genre films in 1999. Jawbreaker, 200 Cigarettes, The Mod Squad, 10 Things I Hate About You, Teaching Mrs. Tingel, Drive Me Crazy just to name a few. Luckily, some studios released films like "Rushmore" that put a new spin on the teen angst film.
Alexander Payne's "Election" keeps Matthew Broderick from his 80s Ferris Bueller status and leaves him in his 90s adult loser status. In "Election", he's a boring Civics teacher and Student Council Sponsor. Reese Witherspoon who forgoed the Scream knockoffs and status quo teen fare.....oh yeah, she did do "Cruel Intentions". Anyways, this time she picked a script over cleavage playing Tracy Flick and giving us an original film about the overachiever syndrome. Flick is a girl who will stop at nothing to win the student election even if it means resorting to tactics Karl Rove would endorse. This has a completely original feel. It isn't nerd loves cheerleader, Ryan loves loser girl. Tracy Flick would destroy Samantha Baker and then spit on her for longing for some hunk while there are much bigger things to do like winning class president. This way you can add it to your resume, go to a good college so you can get a good internship so when you graduate you can dominate the world.
This gives us something we haven't seen on film before. We have an outcast nerdy girl who has all of this power and determination for her own agenda. Maybe the closest we've seen to this is "Carrie" but that's different. Flick didn't kill anybody. Director Alexander Payne took the momentum from this film to release Oscar darlings "About Schmidt" and "Sideways", two films about being on the road and finding yourself. "Election" is a teen film of the 90s that will hold up long past it turns 20.
In the summer of '99, we were shown "American Pie", putting R-Rated films about getting action on the landscape. It wasn't hinting at anything. It was bold and actually showed Jason Biggs humping a warm apple pie. It was so shocking. This is where Porkys and all those loser loses virginity of the 80s movies didn't venture. This had a certain element of raunch to it. In some ways Judd Apatow's success can be paved with this film making over 100 million dollars.
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